“Fuck.” The word fell out of my mouth like it was a breathe of air. 

It was raining, but that was typical Seattle. Every season, no matter what, you will see rain down here. It takes a while to get use to, but when you live everyday on the street, it becomes a part of you. 

I still need to figure out what day it is, or better yet, where I am. Last place I remember being was Waterfront Park on a Sunday. Or was it Saturday? Whenever it was, there was a lot of happy families and large eye bags. 

“Kid, you look lost.” The voice caught me off guard, it was clear and concise. I didn’t know whether to turn and look, or run in the opposite direction. You see, living on the street also has many dangers. Cops don’t take well to us. We are all classified as tweakers, runaways, skater punks or just fucked up children, even if that’s not the case. “Mind telling me where I am?” That could make or break me. 

There was no reply for a while. It was not a chilled silence, but one that was needed. Then the voice asked, “If you give me a light, I’ll tell you everything you need.” He now became a man I could trust. The street people look out for one another, family of some sort. Although I don’t smoke, having a lighter handy was something we should all have. To start fires when it’s cold, to scare others who get too close for comfort, or to help out a fellow friend.

I lit up his blunt, he asked if I wanted a puff but I more than gladly passed. “You’re right off 1st and University, ‘bout a block up from Waterfront Park.” The smell of weed traveled quite quickly up my nasal passage. “You’ve been lying there for a day or two. I thought you were dead for a while.” I was debating if I should tell him if I had narcolepsy, but explaining that I just fell asleep spontaneous is a hard concept to grasp. He took another puff, this one longer, he would soon be useless to me. 

“What day is it?” He pulled out today’s copy of The Seattle Times, it read June 19th. “You can have it, I jibbed it for cover from the rain. Y’know, using it as an umbrella and stuff. The weather said it was going to clear up, odd for Seattle. Hope I was some help.” He handed me the paper and walked off towards the busy streets. 

Compared to most people on the streets, I was literate. I grew up in child services, jumped from family to family until I decided to take things into my own hands.

There was one family that taught me everything I needed to know intellectually, some basic math, some simple science, but more importantly how to read. I still use their last name as mine, Holder, because with them was the only place I felt like home. I think if they let me stay, I wouldn’t be so bitter, but adoption was not a option for them. I can still remember the day I left the Holder household, Mrs. Holder actually cried when she said goodbye. No one has ever cried for me before, and I really still don’t know what to think about that whole situation. 

I didn’t believe what this man was telling me about the weather, I just had to see it for myself. I was turning to the back pages, when something caught my eye. It was not a big headline that would be situated on the front page, but something smaller. It was a story about a foster girl, a simpleton who was left in front of a local orphanage in Newcastle. I went on to read it, and the grave detail in the article made me sit down and just take it in. She was brutally abused, physically and sexually. They said that the bruising on her thigh was the deepest of purple, and with the amount of blood loss, death was inevitable. I’ve always considered myself blessed. I lived in nice homes, but the streets became my home by choice.  

By the looks of the people walking around and the height of the sun, it was almost noon, and I haven’t eaten in a day and a half. It’s time for my favourite sport; dumpster diving. 

After I established my bearings and walked back to Waterfront Park. For some reason I grown attached to this park, I know it like the back of my head. Every corner, every alleyway, everything. And one thing I knew quite well was when East Side threw out the freshest food. It wasn’t the cleanest stuff, but when you are living day to day, half eaten garlic bread and something that once looked like pasta is better than nothing. This large blue dumpster was kind of a meeting place for some of us, it’s where we have our nice family lunch on our makeshift table. ”Beat you to it.” A familiar voice rang out. 

“Better of saved me some food, Rugs.” He didn’t know his real name, nor did he care to come up with one, but he insisted on everyone calling him Rugs. He came up with it because when he was 13 he already had this light beard on his face, which some of the guys called a rug. I guess it caught on from then. He was one of the guys I had lunch with on the daily and if he had some change, he’d even treat me to some coffee. Luckily today, he grabbed me my favourite, fettucini alfredo.

“Where’ve you been, Holder?”
“Sleeping.” He knew about the whole narcolepsy.
“Man, you’ve got to stop coming back from the dead, you scare the shit out of some people. And by some I mean me and by people I mean me.” He laughed at his nonexistence humour, I joined in just to make him happy. 

Rugs was a breath of fresh air to the street life. He was always full of this undying energy that lifted up souls. He was also an intelligent fellow, book and street smart. He learned to read from a man we refer to as the Mr. Pope, a devout catholic who ended up being addicted to meth. He was like a teacher for street kids, there was no man wiser, or intelligent. He is one of the few houseless (we have homes) that we had a proper burial ceremony for. 

I pulled out the paper that the man had given me just to have something to talk about when GPBS joined us for lunch. He, unlike Rugs, had a name. George Paul, where the GP in GPBS came from, the BS stood for the stories he told; bullshit. 

“My main men, did you guys hear about Luke Luck?” Rugs and I looked at each other, knowing that the story that we were about to here would be more fabricated than the clothing on his “Apparently he was chased down Union and beaten down by these big guys, real big. He has a fat lip and all, he lost so much blood that he’s barely alive.”

His story humoured us, Luke Luck was a gambling addict who casually appeared on the street whenever he was kicked out of his apartment in which he shared with his mother. Him getting beat down was a typical story around here, nothing about it was too shocking, and we couldn’t care the slightest. 

Our lunch was slowly disappearing, GPBS decided to stay back with us and eat whatever he could find.

One thing we did every lunch was share stories, not the ones that George Paul had heard, but stories about how the street had formed us, how the life before the street had made us who we are, how our little flaws made us into complete failures. Some days there were groups, some days there was just 2, but there was always a man or woman with a story to tell. Today, like most days, I decided to share the life and times of a narcoleptic.